Fast forward a year, Swanberg took a few steps back from the failed Kickstarter, and put work into a “remastered” version of the first Sylvio, followed with a console release in Jan. 2017 for Xbox One and PS4. It’s assumable that the console release must have given him the leverage he needed to pave way for a much needed second installment.

Like the prior game, Sylvio 2 follows Juliette Waters, ghost recorder and EVP-specialist. In the first one, set in 1971, Waters gets her hands on a reel recorder and stereo microphone. Eager to test out her new gadgets, she heads into an abandoned park called Saginaw in hopes to capture some EVP recordings. She eventually becomes trapped in the park, and must use her equipment to not only solve a long lingering mystery about the park’s closing and abandonment, but also find a way out. This time around in Sylvio 2, Waters returns to Saginaw park, but now armed with video equipment.

The player uses the equipment to capture audio and visual of the afterlife. The recordings come out distorted and fragmented, requiring the player to review the audio and visuals using the rewinding, fast forwarding, and slowing down features of her equipment to decipher and put the messages together. It’s a mechanic that allows the story to be told in a marvelously creepy unconventional way.

Sylvio was one of my favorite game experiences of 2015.

Sylvio can be best compared to a dream: it feels familiar, but equally has an unknown—almost unfinished—feeling. The world is sprawling and empty, all of which adds to its eerie atmosphere. Like trying to remember a dream, you can grasp onto fragments, but things in between seem to be missing. There’s logic to its world, yet doesn’t make any sense at the same time.

It’s been criticized for its graphics, controls, and lack of fleshed out mechanics. But similar to how I feel about Deadly Premonition, its lack of detail, its design flaws, and quirks—whether intentional or not—adds to a distinct aesthetic of the game. Its the bigger picture of both these titles that have made an impact on me. Sylvio offers things that I simply have never seen in a game of its genre before, especially in a story telling and world building sense.

The horror in Sylvio is entirely owed to its pacing and atmosphere. It never had a jump scare; its uninviting environment made me equally curious, making me want to explore every corner, but with a lingering sense of caution. I loved this game, and it’s stuck with me long past initially playing it. I can’t wait for the second one.

I didn’t want to use this blog to have news pieces, but I saw this as an opportunity to gush over a game I’ve been wanting to write about and share for a long time.